If You're Thinking of Living In/Douglaston, Queens; Timeless City Area, With a Country Feel

By DIANA SHAMAN

Published: February 8, 2004

Correction Appended

A WINTERY landscape gives a special sparkle to the peninsula that forms the northerly section of Douglaston as the sun flits over ice floes dotting the dark blue waters of Little Neck Bay.

''The light is so white and silvery, but every season is beautiful here,'' said Ann Jawin, chairwoman of the Doug Bay Manor Civic Association, which she helped to found in 1968, two years after she moved here with her husband, Edward, into a new high ranch with views across the bay. ''We feel privileged to live here.''

The other three boundaries of this northeast Queens community are the Grand Central Parkway to the south, Alley Pond Park to the west and Marathon and Little Neck Parkways to the east. It has six distinct neighborhoods: Doug Bay, Douglas Manor and Douglaston Hill on the peninsula north of Northern Boulevard; Douglaston Park, between the boulevard and the Long Island Expressway; and two areas south of the expressway, Douglaston and a small section called Winchester Estates.

All six sections share certain attractions: excellent schools, good shopping and a parklike setting, with housing that includes everything from one-bedroom co-ops to 15-room mansions on the water. In addition, there are good transportation options, with major highways and quick access to Manhattan by the Long Island Rail Road.

''Douglaston is one of the jewels of the city of New York,'' said Jerry M. Iannece, chairman of Community Board 11. ''People who want to remain in the city rather than move to Westchester or Long Island pick northeast Queens and particularly Douglaston because it is so incredibly convenient, with all the benefits of living in the country.''

The community's appeal comes at a cost. ''The prices here are astronomically high for even the most modest detached house,'' said Lynne Jaffe, an associate broker with Doug North Realty on Douglaston Parkway. ''The cheapest house I can think of that sold recently was a small Cape in Douglaston Park on a 40-foot-by-100-foot lot that needed to be totally gutted, and it sold for $530,000.''

In general, asking prices range from $550,000 for a small detached house south of the Long Island Expressway to close to $4 million for a mansion in Douglas Manor. Buyers of more modest means, however, can find one-bedroom co-ops for $120,000 at Beech Hills, a 816-unit garden apartment complex on 45 acres just south of the expressway. There are also co-op apartments in four- to six-story apartment houses close to the Douglaston train station. These sell for $170,000 for a one-bedroom to $490,000 for a three-bedroom, Mrs. Jaffe said.

Douglaston's most sought-after neighborhood is Douglas Manor, where winding, hilly streets, many private, are lined by large houses. The waterfront is a ribbon of private parkland, with a marina and four acres of playing fields, that the homeowners, as members of the Douglas Manor Association, own in common.

In 1997, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Douglas Manor as the Douglaston Historic District, ensuring that nothing could be altered externally or built there without the commission's approval. Because of restrictions, even new houses look as if they have been there a century.

In its historic district designation report, the commission said the Manor, as it is often called, is ''an important example of an early 20th-century planned suburb adapted to the site of a 19th-century estate.''

THAT estate once belonged to George Douglas who settled here in 1835, purchasing 240 acres and a Greek Revival mansion, built in 1819 by a wealthy merchant, Wyant Van Zandt, at West Drive and Manor Road. The mansion now houses the Douglaston Club, a private country club.

George Douglas's son William inherited the estate on his father's death in 1862, and the name Douglaston was born four years later, when the North Shore Railroad extended service to the area and named its new stop Douglaston, in return for William's donation of an outbuilding for use as a station house.

The Rickert-Finlay Realty Company of Manhattan, which purchased 175 acres of the holdings -- 65 acres had previously been subdivided for the adjoining neighborhood, Douglaston Hill -- formed the Douglas Manor Association in 1906 and laid out a planned community in a setting beautified by 159 varieties of trees, including exotic species like magnolias, European linden and Japanese pagoda trees, that George Douglas had delighted in planting.

Houses were built in a variety of architectural styles including Colonial Revival and Arts and Crafts, popular at the turn of the last century, and Tudor and Mediterranean, in vogue from 1915 to 1930. Deed restrictions imposed by the association and still in effect controlled the size and placement of houses on their lots. The 600 or so homeowners in the Manor pay $425 annually in dues to the association, which maintains the marina, swimming area and waterfront park.

''There's a tremendous sense of community here because these facilities bring people together,'' said Bernard Haber, the association's president.

Correction: February 22, 2004, Sunday The Gazetteer chart on Feb. 8, about the Douglaston section of Queens, misstated prices for rush-hour commuting to Manhattan. The daily fare is $6.75, not $3.25, and the monthly rate is $146, not $94.